slow play
by moeten
Summary: before saying 'i love you' for the first time, robin went through the usual stages.


**the moment you think you think it**

* * *

Robin is woken from her zombie-like shuffle to the bathroom by her foot connecting with something hard in the middle of the living room. Sharp, throbbing pain shoots through her toes and up her leg and she hisses a series of unladylike words, stumbling away from the obstruction, her arm shooting out to brace herself against the back of the sofa. On the futon — the futon he'd dragged in here earlier tonight, _now_ Robin remembers, _fuck_ her foot hurts — Barney makes a vague grumbling sound, Robin's accidental kick having disturbed his slumber, and curls in on himself.

Stupid Barney. Stupid idiot, sleeping on the path to the bathroom at three in the morning. Robin tries channelling all the lingering pain in her stubbed toes towards the man, tired and willing to blame this all on him. She picks her way around his mattress to the bathroom, running her hand sleepily through her hair.

He's curled in on himself oddly, his body jackknifed and face pressed into the mattress; the Murtaugh list clutched in one hand. Robin's pretty sure his ear is actually glowing in the dark. He looks ridiculous, he's going to be sore in the morning, he's lying curled up on the floor in a tee-shirt and dress pants, his mouth is open, and she's pretty sure he's drooling. He's ridiculous. Downright insane. She likes him more than just about anyone.

 _woah there, scherbatsky._ She has an urge to find him a blanket, but it's weird now, she somehow made it weird, for herself, in the living room, at three in the morning. What's Ted always saying? Surely the two AM rule also applies to thoughts. Robin has her pee, climbs back into her bed, resists the urge to give the futon a solid kick as she passes it again. Her blankets are still warm, and her mind sleepily circles around itself, around Barney, him in the living room and her warm in her bed. He's fun. She always has fun when he's around.

She likes him more than anyone.

Thinking of the Murtaugh list and Barney and phantom aches, toes and hands, crisp cotton and her bed in Brooklyn, Robin drifts back to sleep.

* * *

 **the moment you think you know it**

* * *

There's this strange moment, after: lying together in his bed, her arms loose around him, her heart only just starting to slow. He's lying bonelessly against her, his hip digging into her belly, and she's wondering if that can't be turned into a joke of some kind; boneless, boner. There's something there for sure. She cards her fingers through his hair. The joke isn't coming to her.

He mouths sleepily at her neck until Robin feels his heartbeat steady; then, true to form, he rears back on his elbows, his legs untangling from hers, he groans a little, and he's about to roll over, collapse onto his side of the bed (it's all his side of the bed, it's all his bed — she doesn't know why she mentally corrects herself there), and she does the strange thing: instead of letting him go, she holds on, one hand on his shoulder, his muscles shifting under her palm, the other sliding from the back of his head to his cheek, his jaw. He looks briefly confused; she reaches up and kisses him. She means to give him a quick peck; she misses, hits the corner of his mouth, his cheek.

It's somehow more intimate for its lack of sexual intent, her fingers brushing the curve of his ear, and Robin pulls away, lies back on the pillow (his _second_ pillow; she's not thinking about this), looks away, clears her throat, looks back when she sees he hasn't moved.

He's looking at her: this look he gets sometimes, the look that makes Robin think about the hospital thing a few months ago, the look she tries not to think about too much, the look that makes her think about his bed and his pillows and this whole summer. Casual sex. Friends with benefits. He'd just confused lust for love. (She's confusing love for —)

"Robin?" he questions, and he's probably freaked out; Barney and Robin do _not_ kiss like that, do not kiss without sexual intent, and he's _looking_ at her like that, and she doesn't want to know what her own expression says. She wants to do it again. She wants him to lie back down, settle himself over her body, stupid bony hip and all, not to _fuck_ but to —

Dammit.

"I'm trying to think of a good boner joke," she blurts out, because what else can she say right now?

Something shifts in his eyes — and he flops down next to her, the mattress sinking under the new placement of weight. "What are the options?" he asks, intrigued, and she turns her head and he's grinning hopefully over at her.

Their arms, shoulders, brush. She doesn't let herself notice.

* * *

 **the moment when you know you know it but can't yet say it**

* * *

Her conversation with her father isn't long, but when she hangs up, Barney has wandered away, roughhousing with Ted, who has him in a headlock. Barney's bitching about his clothes getting ruined; and she laughs, because Ted is laughing and Lily is chasing after Marshall who is running back towards them with his garbage lid; Ted releases Barney and Barney stumbles away. He yells something the pouring rain and Marshall's whoops drown out; he spins, looking for something, a target to kick water at, and Robin catches Barney's eye.

He was going to kiss her. He was going to kiss her, right there in the rain, and she was going to let him: she's acutely aware that she _is_ going to let him, he's going to see she's off the phone and forget Ted, forget Marshall, forget Lily: come back to her and kiss her, like they're in a goddamn movie, and she can't stop smiling. _I love you_ , she thinks, knows, realizes; Robin isn't sure on the verbs but the awareness of it fills her, the hurricane rains down around them, water running down her face, in her eyes, they dated and didn't date and broke up a year ago, he's an asshole and the sweetest guy and he was going to kiss her, she feels fluttery and warm and she loves him. She's in love with him.

She catches his eye and he grins at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners, his hair dark from rain, and she waits for him to come back to her, kiss her in the rain, but Marshall boogie-boards himself right through the window just then; they're all distracted, laughing, worried, she brushes her heavy hair out of her face and looks at him, laughing, helping Ted pull Marshall up from the pavement, and thinks it again. _I love you_.

Maybe she'll tell him soon.

* * *

 **the moment when you know you know it and can't keep it in any longer**

* * *

It's been days, hours, minutes: she's been _engaged_ for seconds, for months, for weeks — Robin doesn't know, Robin is dizzy from all the changes, from Barney's arms around her, from his mouth on hers, from his ring on her finger. He pulls away from her for just a moment, grinning, ecstatic, looking at her like he can't believe it, like they're sharing some kind of joke, like he _loves_ her, he always has, she never noticed, and it just slips out. "I love you," she says.

His expression goes slack, and she feels his hands slip, the wide-eyed surprise on his face causing her heart to skip, to twist: that he could be surprised, the things they've done to one another. "For a long —" _time_ , she's about to say, snow sticking to her cheeks and the shoulders of his coat, hurrying to explain, to tell him, to finally, years later, lay it all on the line.

"Dammit!" he says loudly, emphatically, and she's startled, but he's smiling, his mouth crooked up in the corner, his hands warm, burrowed under her open coat. He kisses her hard on the mouth, pulls away, does it again, and Robin twists her head away before they get caught in a feedback loop of kissing, because:

" _Dammit_?" she echoes, feeling some of her earlier annoyance creep back up.

He beams at her, tilts his head slightly to the side. "I had a _speech_ ," he says. Kisses the corner of her mouth. "I spent weeks on it." Her jaw. She tilts her head a little, her stomach warm and fizzy, her blood pounding in her veins. "I was going to tell you how awesome you are," he murmurs into her throat, his voice dropping low.

"Were you?" She pulls him against her, her fingers pushing at his head.

He _hmms_. "How hot you are," he adds, and it's starting to get a little hard to think, for reasons outside of the previous fuzziness, and she clutches at him and waits for it. "How low-cut this dress is," Barney adds, a little distracted himself, his hands sliding up under her coat.

"Focus, buddy," she says, patting him on the back.

He pulls himself up and looks at her, and she's trying not to smile, trying not to beam at him, and she can see him fighting it, too, and she knows his grin would be just as stupid as her own.

"That I love you," he says simply, no fanfare, none of his usual dramatics, the corner of his mouth raised and his eyes soft. "And I've been in love with you for a really long time."

"It's too bad I ruined your speech," Robin says. She's right: he's grinning like an idiot. So's she.

"I know, right?" he murmurs. She kisses him. His fingers slide along the neckline of her dress.

"You'll have to give it to me later," she says.

"Oh, I'll give it to you," he promises lecherously, waggling his eyebrows, and she laughs and wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him back against her.


End file.
